I’ve never seen anything like this in my 50 years on this planet. I hear a lot people talking about buying a house right now because it’s PITI costs are equal to rental costs, or it’s down 40% from it’s peak, etc…. All these ASSUMPTIONs about this market are that it will be static are dangerous at this time, IMO. This aint your 1990 recession. The odds of job loss in the next 2 years should be carefully considered by everyone. And that rents could decrease as well. The odds of a true 0% CPI in the next 6 months are now very good due to the huge commodities price drop in the prior 6 months.

Stay liquid and lower expenses to the bare minimum. I dont even know that debt is such a big deal since one could not pay it off and all that happens is that you lost your credit rating. Oh well, how’s that going to matter when there’s no money available anyway or your unemployed. If I had a HELOC, I’d think about draining out the cash and then wait to see how things go. At least you’d have the money if things really went sour. Credits going away. Might as well get what you can if things look really bad in the near future.

I know this sounds pretty tin-foil-hat in nature. But if you look at the magnitude of the problem, I dont see how payback will not be a beotch for the immense credit abuse of the last 10 years or more.